Health Minister Dr. Christopher Tufton - file photo
Minister of Health Dr. Christopher Tufton has said there is no suspected case of the coronavirus at the University Hospital of the West Indies.
Speaking at a news conference Tuesday afternoon, Dr. Tufton said the patient under observation at the hospital has not met the case definition of the coronavirus.
Dr. Tufton said the UHWI will continue to do further tests.
The hospital will release the patient once the tests are completed.
The Health Minister said a travel advisory has also been issued for China.
Not feasible to contain
In the meantime, some infectious disease experts are warning that it may no longer be feasible to contain the new coronavirus circulating in China.
They say failure to stop it in China could see the virus spread in a sustained way around the world and even perhaps join the ranks of respiratory viruses that regularly infect people.
Dr. Allison McGeer, a Toronto-based infectious disease specialist who contracted SARS in 2003 and who helped Saudi Arabia control several hospital-based outbreaks of MERS says there is a possibility that transmission will not be controlled with public health measures.
Chinese authorities said today that the outbreak of the mysterious new coronavirus is rapidly spreading, as the official account of known cases rose nearly 60 per cent overnight and the death toll exceeded 100 for the first time.
The number of confirmed cases increased to 4,515 on Tuesday, from 2,835 Monday.
The youngest confirmed case is a 9-month-old girl in Beijing.
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